Radiate Lovingkindness This Mettā May
Support Spirit Rock’s transformative programs with a gift this Mettā May.
Calendar
Retreat
May
Retreat | On-Land
May 11 - May 16, 2024 | Saturday - Thursday | 5 nights
Spring Insight Retreat
8 CE Credits. The Buddha suggested that we have underestimated the capacity of our heart. Retreat helps us to remember. In mindfulness meditation, we practice resting, looking deeply, and knowing moment by moment what it's like to be human. The more deeply we look, the more reason we have to love. Together, we'll sit in the refuge provided by a 2,600-year legacy of wisdom and kindness. In silence, we come to know the preciousness of our life and the poignancy of the human condition.
Retreat | Online
Saturday, May 11 | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM
All About Love: Celebrating bell hooks
We all want love. Throughout this retreat, we will explore together how love can be when it is expressed in conjunction with the qualities of the Four Divine States of Equanimity, Kindness, Compassion, and Inclusive Joy. This daylong retreat includes short readings from bell hooks, who puts forward fierce feminist social criticism that invites us to transform our challenges into strength in order to manifest the love and caring we want in our lives.
Rev. Liên Shutt
Retreat | Online
Sunday, May 12 | 10:00 AM - 2:30 PM
Embodying the Archetypal Buddhist Feminine: A Refuge for Inspiration and Equanimity
Open to all self-identified Women. Join us on Mother’s Day to celebrate the archetypal Buddhist feminine, with a focus on Prajna Paramita, Green Tara, and others. By aligning ourselves with aspects of different sacred archetypes, we'll explore how they can live in our body and offer a sense of equanimity and inspiration. This day is not only for mothers, but for all who identify as women and want to sit in the sacred space of embodying our heart’s deepest expression of the divine feminine.
Grace Fisher
Retreat | Online
Sunday, May 19 | 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Vesak 2024: Celebrating the Buddha and the Triple Gem
Vesak is the Buddhist holiday honoring the birth, awakening, and death of the Buddha. To honor Vesak 2024 (year 2568 in the Buddhist calendar), we will share simple chants from the Forest Saṅgha and Mahāyāna traditions, learn a meditation on the qualities of the Buddha called Buddhānussati, and and celebrate the presence of the Dharma in our lives and in the world. All are welcome.
Sean Oakes
Retreat | Online
Saturday, May 25 | 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
This Is How Civilizations Heal: The Alchemy of the Three Poisons
The three poisons—greed, aversion, and delusion—are mind states that cloud the heart and mind. However, by clearly recognizing the three poisons, we can meet them with their antidotes of generosity, mettā, and wisdom. Generosity expands our ability to feel connected and reminds us that we belong to each other. Mettā opens the heart, protecting us from both inner and outer harm, while wisdom allows us to see things right sized as we move through the world.
Leslie Booker
Retreat | On-Land
May 26 - May 30, 2024 | Sunday - Thursday | 4 nights
The Body as Nature, Nature in the Body: Dharma and Our Connection to the Earth
Our body can be a vehicle for liberation in this life, containing all we need to wake up. Yet we may not know how to relate to the body in the ways that can support this kind of freedom. Throughout this retreat, we will practice connecting to our body with loving awareness while recognizing ourselves as an essential part of nature. Together, we will engage in noble silence as we are nurtured and supported by the land at Spirit Rock.
Retreat | On-Land | Hybrid
Sunday, May 26 | 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Inspire, Energize, and Connect: Remedies for the Heart
Come join us as we take a deep dive into the timeless and beautiful teachings of the Bodhisattva, the one who meets suffering with intention, strength, determination, courage, and love. Together, we'll explore ways to skillfully navigate our everyday lives with a steady, receptive mind and a courageous, wise heart. The day includes periods of sitting and walking meditation, as well as Dharma reflections and plenty of time to talk with each other. All are warmly welcome!
Retreat | Online | Hybrid
Sunday, May 26 | 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Inspire, Energize, and Connect: Remedies for the Heart
Come join us as we take a deep dive into the timeless and beautiful teachings of the Bodhisattva, the one who meets suffering with intention, strength, determination, courage, and love. Together, we'll explore ways to skillfully navigate our everyday lives with a steady, receptive mind and a courageous, wise heart. The day includes periods of sitting and walking meditation, as well as Dharma reflections and plenty of time to talk with each other. All are warmly welcome!
Retreat | On-Land
May 31 - June 6, 2024 | Friday - Thursday | 6 nights
Loving Each Moment: The Heartfelt Revelation of Dharma
This retreat will explore the simplicity of being in each moment. Together we will discover the heart's capacity to awaken to loving ourselves, each other, and the world. Together in community we will be nourished by the 2600 year old tradition of abiding in silence, stillness, kindness, and clarity. Our time together will include mindfulness meditation in sitting, movement, and all daily activities. The teachings will weave together ancient wisdom along with the love of truth and being.
June
Retreat | Online
Saturday, June 1 | 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
The Beauty of the Dhamma: Celebrating the Goodness of the Path
In the Buddha’s discourses, the Dhamma is often called kalyāṇa, or “beautiful.” During this daylong, we'll dive deep into the beautiful qualities of practice: how meditation brings us closer to truth, goodness, inspiration, and love. Our time will include guided meditation, walking and movement practice, reflections on the teachings, and group discussion. Join us for a celebration of the goodness of the path as we continue to walk each other home. Open for beginning and seasoned meditators alike.
devon hase
Retreat | Online
Sunday, June 2 | 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Freedom of Heart: Mindfulness Practices for Healing Addiction
3 CE Credits. While we all long for safety and freedom in our lives, many of us struggle with compulsive and addictive thoughts and behaviors that undermine our happiness. Through meditation, interactive exercises, Dharma talks, and Q&A, we will explore ways to release ourselves from these painful habits and find more freedom and joy throughout our lives.
Retreat | On-Land
June 7 - June 14, 2024 | Friday - Friday | 7 nights
Insight, Awareness, and the Nine Bodies of Consciousness
This retreat offers a new style of Insight Meditation that employs the “Nine Bodies of Consciousness” map. The focus of this practice is on developing mindfulness of the felt sense of embodied experience, and directly experiencing the various capacities of consciousness, including intuitive awareness, which fosters the natural arising of insight. This distinct teaching style will be unfamiliar to first-time “Nine Bodies Insight” practitioners, and potential participants are strongly encouraged to listen to guided meditations beforehand.
Retreat | On-Land
June 15 - June 21, 2024 | Saturday - Friday | 6 nights
The Magic of Awareness
The paradox of awareness is profound and yet very simple. It can’t be described because it has no objective qualities and no limitations. It is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, good nor bad. We will practice with this quality of awareness through formal and informal meditation. Once we know how to pay attention, it can be experienced in an instant. When we learn to reside in that liberated mind, we find the very thing we have been seeking all along.
Retreat | On-Land
June 22 - June 27, 2024 | Saturday - Thursday | 5 nights
Mindfulness for Everyone
8 CE Credits. Mindfulness offers us tools to develop our capacity to pay attention, regulate emotions, and cultivate states of lovingkindness, compassion, and even-mindedness. Mindfulness can be practiced in a variety of ways—from focused attention to wide open, spacious, natural awareness. Over time, one can access states of profound well-being in both silent meditation and everyday life. Rooted in the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, this retreat focuses on practical applications of mindfulness and is open to people of all experience levels and backgrounds.
Retreat | On-Land | Hybrid
Saturday, June 22 | 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
The Awakened Heart: Mindfulness and Compassion Practices for Living a Wise and Free Life
The Awakened Heart practices known as the brahmavihāras are treasures that offer us timeless ways to cultivate and embody lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and peace. Cultivating the heart begins with self-love and self-compassion, and opens toward boundless kindness and care, holding beings throughout the many worlds in our own awakened heart. Join us in the delight of exploring, practicing together, and renewing these disciplines through meditation, stories, teachings, dialogue, and time with our beloved elder teacher.
Jack Kornfield
Retreat | Online | Hybrid
Saturday, June 22 | 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
The Awakened Heart: Mindfulness and Compassion Practices for Living a Wise and Free Life
The Awakened Heart practices known as the brahmavihāras are treasures that offer us timeless ways to cultivate and embody lovingkindness, compassion, joy, and peace. Cultivating the heart begins with self-love and self-compassion, and opens toward boundless kindness and care, holding beings throughout the many worlds in our own awakened heart. Join us in the delight of exploring, practicing together, and renewing these disciplines through meditation, stories, teachings, dialogue, and time with our beloved elder teacher.
Jack Kornfield
Retreat | On-Land
June 28 - July 4, 2024 | Friday - Thursday | 6 nights
Finding Refuge in Belonging: Annual BIPOC Retreat
Open to all self-identified BIPOC. Throughout this BIPOC retreat, we will gain insight into the 10 Paramis—the perfections or attainments of heart and mind—which will guide us as a map for the recovery and reclamation of a culture of belonging and wisdom. These are qualities for navigating life, not just guidelines for meditation, and they are said to be what the Buddha was cultivating in earlier lifetimes as he slowly developed into one who could awaken fully and show others the way to freedom.
Noliwe Alexander
Leslie Booker
Gullu Singh
Margarita Loinaz
Jonathan Relucio
Ramona Lisa Ortiz-Smith
Retreat | Online
June 28 - June 30, 2024 | 1 half day and 2 full days. Times variable - see details.
Restructuring Your Life: Making Inner and Outer Changes that Align with Who You Are Now
In life, restructuring becomes essential when your current framework no longer serves you. Are you spending too much time on things that aren’t a priority anymore or living your life according to an old story? This mindfulness-based workshop interweaves guided meditations with practical teachings. You’ll complete self-assessments that support you in catching up with yourself, and we will focus on mindfulness practices that can help you stay true to what’s most important and reorient you when you get off track.
July
Retreat | On-Land
July 5 - July 14, 2024 | Friday - Sunday | 9 nights
The Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination: Are They Still Applicable?
The Buddha’s teachings of the Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination were formulated more than 2600 years ago in a social environment that was radically different from that of today’s “Information Age.” Are they still functional and useful in the West in the 21st Century? This retreat will be an opportunity to explore these classical teachings and their related practices, and to discover whether they are indeed effective in illuminating our hearts and minds and in leading us to liberation.
Retreat | On-Land
Saturday, July 13 | 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Home is Here, Refuge is Now: An Asian American Gathering
Open to all with Asian heritage (Central, East, North, South, Southeast, and West Asian heritage). This daylong gathering offers people of Asian heritage an opportunity to deepen their relationship to the Dharma in a supportive community. Inspired by Rev. Liên’s book Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Path and Chenxing’s book Be the Refuge: Raising the Voices of Asian American Buddhists, our daylong will weave together meditation, chanting, conversation, and other practices in order to cultivate the possibility that “home is here, refuge is now.”
Retreat | On-Land
July 15 - July 18, 2024 | Monday - Thursday | 3 nights
Tenderness Retreat: Compassion for Self and All Beings
A heart that can stay open and present in the face of dukkha (suffering or dissatisfaction) is one that is well-trained in compassion. Beginning with instruction designed to ease the nervous system and soften the barriers to a tender, open heart, we will learn the ancient radiating method of brahmavihāra practice, which opens the heart of compassion towards all beings, including oneself. It is a gentle but powerful approach to compassion practice suitable for newer and seasoned practitioners alike.
Retreat | On-Land | Hybrid
July 19 - July 28, 2024 | Friday - Sunday | 9 nights
July Insight Meditation Retreat
The emphasis during this retreat will be on the continuity of awareness in all activities, which stabilizes and balances the mind. Relaxed acceptance of our moment-to-moment experience will become the platform for investigation and wisdom. Particular attention will be paid to the attitudes in the mind that condition our understanding. This retreat is suitable for both beginner and experienced meditators, and we welcome people from all life experiences, backgrounds, and communities.
Retreat | Online | Hybrid
July 19 - July 28, 2024 | Friday - Sunday | Audit (broadcast only) | 12:00 AM - 12:00 AM
July Insight Meditation Retreat
The emphasis during this retreat will be on the continuity of awareness in all activities, which stabilizes and balances the mind. Relaxed acceptance of our moment-to-moment experience will become the platform for investigation and wisdom. Particular attention will be paid to the attitudes in the mind that condition our understanding. This retreat is suitable for both beginner and experienced meditators, and we welcome people from all life experiences, backgrounds, and communities.
Retreat | Online
Saturday, July 20 | 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Transforming the Judgmental Mind
6 CE Credits. Judgments of a reactive and compulsive nature can have a strong impact on our lives. They can distort our perceptions, make relationships difficult, and undermine our work. Together we will examine what judgments are and how to work with them, using mindfulness, “heart” practices, and inquiry. These explorations will help us to preserve the discernment often found in judgments, while working through their destructive aspects. Attendees will have the option of regular follow-up sessions to continue and deepen the learning.
Donald Rothberg
Retreat | Online
Sunday, July 21 | 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Qigong and Meditation: Practices for Healing and Awakening
6 CE Credits. Qigong and meditation are complementary practices that help us open beyond our limited sense of self. In this workshop, we will explore the profound energy practice, Lift Chi Up Pour Chi Down—the main practice offered at the Medicineless Qigong Hospital in China, where extraordinary physical, emotional, and spiritual healing results have been attained. During our time together, we will learn practices that release energy blocks and strengthen our connection with source energy. This increases wellbeing on all levels.
Retreat | On-Land
July 29 - August 4, 2024 | Monday - Sunday | 6 nights
The Spirit of Insight, Dharma & Awakening
The essence of Buddhist practice is embodying the Dharma experientially. In this retreat we will use mindfulness meditation to study our experiential reality within all our activities, including meditation, movement, eating, resting, and listening. When we are present and investigate our experiential reality moment by moment, insight arises, and the Dharma reveals itself within our body, heart, and mind. As the living, embodied truth unfolds, we awaken to the Buddha within and discover the depth and breadth of our own human potential.
August
Retreat | On-Land
August 5 - August 10, 2024 | Monday - Saturday | 5 nights
Young Adult Insight Meditation Retreat
Come practice silent mindfulness and Insight Meditation in community with your peers. Give yourself a break from constant overstimulation and external demands as we create a supportive space for cultivating greater calm, spaciousness, and presence. Together we will explore the ancient practices of guided and silent sitting, walking, and heart meditations, along with movement, teacher meetings, and Dharma talks. Over the course of the week, we will extend these practices until the entire day is one of steady, continuous awareness.
Retreat | On-Land
August 11 - August 18, 2024 | Sunday - Sunday | 7 nights
The Elements: Cultivating an Embodied Experience of Emptiness and Fullness
A fundamental aspect of establishing embodied mindfulness involves contemplations of the elements—earth, water, fire, air, and space. These five elements are universal, and when we contemplate them in relation to the body, they may bring a cooling of the grasping mind and profound realizations of emptiness and fullness. In contemplating the elements and their interrelationship, we will allow them to support the non-conceptual knowing from which insights naturally arise. This retreat includes guided and silent meditations, movement, and teacher meetings.
Retreat | On-Land
August 18 - August 27, 2024 | Sunday - Tuesday | 9 nights
Summer Lovingkindness Retreat
The Buddha’s teachings on the four divine sanctuaries include meditations on universal friendliness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. Focusing on purification and concentration, these divine sanctuaries aid our ability to find inner peace and powerfully engage with the world. This retreat deepens our understanding of selfless love and how it ends suffering. Experienced retreatants are encouraged to combine this retreat with the previous Elements retreat to further develop concentration, purify the heart, and learn to integrate these two forms of meditation.
Retreat | On-Land
August 28 - September 2, 2024 | Wednesday - Monday | 5 nights
Labor Day Insight Meditation Retreat
This retreat emphasizes quieting the mind, opening the heart, and developing clarity and depth of practice. Traditional instructions will be combined with a spirit of lovingkindness, and our time together will include a schedule of silent sitting and walking periods, guided Yoga/movement sessions, as well as practice meetings with teachers and daily Dharma talks. This retreat is for experienced as well as new students.